1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to telephones with memories. In particular, it relates to corded and cordless telephones capable of transferring convenience data associated from one telephone which is already programmed by a user, and a target telephone.
2. Background
Telephones have become essential parts of homes and businesses. Networks of copper and fiber optics wires interconnect users from all over the world, thereby allowing users to conveniently communicate with each other by merely pressing a few buttons on a keypad.
In general, digital telephones come in two varieties: corded and cordless telephones. FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of a conventional digital corded telephone, and FIGS. 9A, 9B illustrates block diagrams of a conventional digital cordless telephone.
As shown in FIG. 8, a conventional digital corded telephone 700 includes a telephone line interface (TLI) 702, a ring detect circuit 704, a controller 706, a coder-decoder (CODEC) 708, a keypad 714, a memory 712, a program read only memory (ROM) 710, and a handset 716. The handset 716 of the corded telephone 700 includes a microphone 718 and a speaker 720.
An incoming call is received through the TLI 702 that is configured to provide an interface to a telephone switch network. The ring detect circuit 704 is configured to provide detection an incoming telephone call coming through the TLI 702 and to initiate the familiar telephone ring associated with the incoming telephone call.
The controller 706 is configured to place the telephone 700 in an off-hook mode in response to the user picking up the telephone handset 716 from a cradle (not shown) of the corded telephone 700. Incoming voice signals are converted by the CODEC 708 to drive the speaker 720 for the user to hear the incoming telephone conversation.
In the transmit direction, the CODEC 708 receives output voice signals from the microphone 718 and converts the output voice signals to analog electrical signals to send back to the caller through the TLI 702.
The controller 706 is configured to execute a software program or state machine that defines the functions of the corded telephone 700. With the appropriate software program or state machine, the corded telephone 700 may implement functions such as caller identification, speed dialing, or call waiting. The controller 706 may be implemented with a digital signal processor (DSP), microprocessor, microcontroller, or combinational logic.
The program ROM 710 is configured to provide a storage medium to store a software program or state machine that provides the functionality of the corded telephone 700. The memory 712 is configured to store user programmed data such as speed memory dial numbers, emergency numbers, and etc.
The keypad 714 is configured to provide an interface for a user to operate the corded telephone 700.
FIG. 9A shows a handset of a typical digital cordless telephone. In the transmit direction of the handset 802 of the conventional cordless telephone 800, a microphone 802 outputs an analog signal to a CODEC 804 in response to a user speaking during an active telephone call. The CODEC 804 is configured to convert a microphone input signal to a digital microphone signal to a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 806. In response to the received digital microphone signal, the RF transceiver 806 is configured to convert the received digital microphone signal into an RF signal for transmission to a complementary base unit 850.
A program read-only-memory (ROM) memory 810 is configured to provide a storage medium for the software or state machine that provides the functionality of handset 801. A memory 812 is configured to store user programmed data such as speed memory dial numbers, emergency numbers, and etc.
In the receive direction, the RF transceiver 806 receives an RF signal from the complementary base unit 850. The RF transceiver 806 converts the RF signal to a digital signal that is passed to the CODEC 804 for decoding. The output of the CODEC 804 is an analog signal for output by a speaker 816.
FIG. 9B shows a block diagram of a base unit 850 of the conventional digital cordless telephone 800. The base unit 850 contains circuitry which is complementary to that contained in the handset 801, i.e., a complementary RF transceiver 852, a controller 856, a CODEC 854, a program ROM 860, and a memory 862. The base unit 850 also includes a telephone line interface (TLI) 858 to interface with a public switched telephone network and a ring detect circuit 864 to detect an incoming telephone call through the TLI interface 858.
As digital telephones have become an essential part of homes and businesses, the cost of digital telephones has also dropped. As a result, it is not surprising to find multiple telephones in a home and/or business.
Moreover, digital telephones have become increasingly more and more sophisticated. Many digital telephones provide convenient functions such as speed dial, call waiting, caller identification (ID), and etc. In order to implement many of these features, digital memory is used to store convenience data, e.g., telephone numbers, caller ID tables, and etc.
However, in households with multiple digital telephones, each digital telephone must be manually programmed by the user with the same or similar convenience information, which leads to excess labor by the user, and the risk of errors or differences between different digital telephones.
Moreover, convenience memory of a digital telephone may become erased or corrupted, leading to the need for the user to again manually reprogram the digital telephone with custom convenience information, e.g., speed dial telephone numbers.
There is a need for an improved digital telephone which avoids the need to separately program different telephones within a house or small office.
In accordance with the principles of the present invention, a telephone module capable of transferring convenience feature data between separate telephones comprises a convenience feature data memory located within a first telephone configured to store convenience feature data relevant to the first telephone. A data transfer module is in communication with the convenience feature data memory, and is configured to transfer the convenience feature data to another telephone.
A method of transferring convenience feature data to a user""s telephone from another telephone comprises initiating a request to transfer the convenience data from the other telephone. The convenience feature data is transferred from the other telephone to the user""s telephone in response to the transfer request.